A number of experimental tasks were conducted in which subjects were asked to interpret and create novel noun-noun compounds. Results indicate that semantic relationships that hold between members of these compounds cannot be characterized in terms of a finite list of appropriate compounding relationships. (CHK)

This article proposes use of one aspect of transformational-generative grammar as a simple explanation of the use of English articles. In this method, nouns are analyzed to determine their definiteness and whether they are countable, as tests for using "a" and "the." (CHK)

The paper begins with a discussion of several recently proposed analyses of nominal compounds in English. It is then suggested that the relations which may appropriately underlie nominal compounds of the type Noun + Noun can best be defined negatively, i.e. by listing those relations between two nouns which cannot underlie compounds rather than…

Transferred epithets, adjectives that appear to have been transferred from adverb to prenominal position (e.g., "I balanced a thoughtful lump of sugar..."), have been viewed as unanalyzable both grammatically and from the viewpoint of transformational derivation. However, another explanation is that these combinations show patterns…